The present invention relates to an integral document processing apparatus equipped with an image forming system and a facsimile transmission system and, more specifically, to an integral document processing apparatus equipped with an electrophotographic copying machine incorporating a facsimile transmission unit and having a document feeding unit which serves both as a document feeding unit for the copying machine and the facsimile transmission unit.
In a minor business firm or a small store, only one facsimile equipment is sufficient for transmitting and receiving message. However, in a large enterprise having many offices distributed on many floors in a building, one facsimile equipment is insufficient and hence such a large enterprise needs a plurality of facsimile equipments. It is expected that the use of facsimile equipments at different places in the same building will become more prevalent. When a plurality of facsimile equipments are used in an office building, telephone lines respectively corresponding to the facsimile equipments in number need to be installed in the office building. Recently, private branch telephone exchange system (hereinafter abbreviated to "PBX") have been introduced increasingly into enterprises. However, when a facsimile equipment is connected to PBX, the facsimile equipment is able to transmit message, but the same is unable to receive message, and hence a telephone line exclusively for the facsimile equipment needs to be installed.
On the other hand, distributive installation of electrophotographic copying machines in offices has been prevalent in recent years. Accordingly, the integration of a copying unit, a facsimile transmission unit and a common operating system will facilitate work for facsimile transmission and copying operation and will enable effective use of the copying unit and the facsimile unit.
Although an integral document processing apparatus having an electrophotographic copying unit and a facsimile unit has been known, no integral document processing apparatus having a copying unit and a facsimile transmission unit has been known. Japanese Laid Open Patent Publication No. 60-128859 discloses a copying machine capable of producing a plurality of copies from received facsimile message and collating the copies in accordance with codes included in the facsimile message. However, this known copying machine is not capable of facsimile transmission.
There is also a known document processing apparatus integrally having a digital copying unit which generates digital electric image signals through the pootoelectric conversion of the image of a document and copies the image of the document by driving a thermal printer or a laser beam printer by the electric image signal, and a facsimile unit. However, the copying unit of this known document processing apparatus reads the image of a document electrically, and hence is unable to compete with an electrophotographic copying machine in performance, for example, in resolution of image.